John Keay calls for more regional approaches to South Asia’s history at a recent book launch at LSE of Midnight’s Descendants, reports Laleh Habib

Habib, Laleh

LSE Research Online

2014-2-14Living history in South Asiablogs.lse.ac.uk /southasia/2014/02/14/living-history-in-south-asia/John Keay calls for more regional approaches to South Asia’s history at a recent book launch at LSE ofMidnight’s Descendants, reports Laleh Habib.  At a recent talk at the Asia Research Centre, historian John Keaypresented a “contemporary history” of South Asia as part of the launch of his new book, Midnight’s Descendants:South Asia from Partition to the Present Day. Keay described his history as ‘contemporary’ because the eventsdetailed in the book are contemporaneous with the authors’ life. Describing his association with the region, Keayrecalled his experience of watching televised independence celebrations in Delhi, aged six. At the age of 19, hetravelled to the region for the first time, and has since returned every year “as a journalist, documentary-maker,lecturer, writer of many books and a taker of many holidays.” Midnight’s Descendants is the latest of his many bookson South Asia. While South Asia has been the subject of much of Keay’sprevious work, the scope and focus of Midnight’s Descendants isunique, exploring the trajectories of all the constituent nations of regionfrom Partition to the present day. At LSE, Keay argued for the need tostudy the region as a whole; while South Asia remains one of the leastintegrated regions in the world, it has a joint past and shares concernsfor the future. He added that he was struck by the overarchingsimilarities between South Asian countries, rather than their differences.Despite following such divergent trajectories, Keay maintained that thecountries of South Asia have followed certain parallels: they sharebloody beginnings in Partition, and early experiences with nation-building and constitution-drafting, some more expediently than others. In1971, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh all had democratically electedleaders who enjoyed overwhelming support, all three of whom weretoppled within a span of four years. The 1980s saw the rise of religiousmilitancy and fundamentalism, fueled by diasporic elements. This wasfollowed by concurrent periods of economic growth and liberalism in the1990s, reflected in the increase of cotton exports from Bangladesh, DrManmohan Singh’s policies of economic liberalisation in India, andNawaz Sharif’s pro-business agenda in his first two prime-ministerialterms. In his talk, Keay navigated his audience through the sundarbansthat lie between India and Bangladesh. The shifting mud banks throughwhich the border runs, Keay suggested, highlight the absurdity of the international boundaries in South Asia, cuttingthrough land holdings and communities, and moving continuously as a result of the water gushing through them.These demarcations are further muddied by the presence of enclaves, bits of Bangladesh in India, and vice versa,and the shifting riverine soils of the chars [silt islands], which pay no heed to borders and render their residentsimmigrants in neighbouring countries with a change of tide. Borders and identities are not the only contentioustopics in India. Indeed, as Keay acknowledged at the start of his talk, the very idea of a contemporary history is anoxymoron. Without the distance and detachment of years, an analysis of current events in South Asia remainscontroversial, crowded by different perspectives. Keay acknowledged that his work “will probably be challenged, andwill certainly be superseded”. The animated question and answer session that followed laid credence to this, andemphasised the continuing need to study South Asia more holistically.About the AuthorLaleh Habib graduated with a Master’s degree from LSE’s Department of Media and Communication in 2006.Copyright © 2016 London School of Economics1/22/2

Living history in South Asia

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